Government Job Report - Top Hiring Federal Agencies (December 2009)

Government hiring has continued to decline slightly due to the recession, but there are still more job openings than jobs hired.

The most current data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is September 2009. Preliminary figures list 267,000 job openings and 258,000 hires at the federal, state, and local level. Less than 4 percent of current job openings were left unfilled.

At the federal level, there were over 41,000 job openings and only 24,000 new hires, indicating a job-fill rate of 58 percent. Over 17,000 job openings in the federal government were left unfilled.

But when we move to the state and federal level, there were more hires than job openings. In September, there were 235,000 hires and 221,000 job openings. This suggests that turnover for jobs at the state and local level is very low. Local and state governments are also experiencing budgetary problems (Hi, California), which has caused government services to be reduced significantly and less need to create new job openings.

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Competition for government jobs is tough, but not hopeless. Hiring managers may be finding the candidates they desire for the positions available, but they are still looking for qualified candidates with a commitment to public service. Remember, there were still over 267,000 job openings in September. That is 267,000 opportunities to start a career in government.

Looking through USAJOBS.com, we found nearly 16,000 current openings within 79 federal agencies and departments spread across the country. This is a small sum compared to the number of government jobs available at the state and local level.

The Department of the Navy leads the way with 3795 current job openings. Most of the job demand at the federal level is related to the military, but these job openings are for civilian positions and do not require a military service commitment. The rest of the top 10 are: